Chapter 23

Those of us blessed to live in the

United States

understand that our country was founded by radicals. These men and women championed the values of freedom and self-determination. In a similar way, Baptists have been defined by their radical commitment to freedom. Since the early 1600s, four basic freedoms have traditionally and historically defined the Baptist faith. These freedoms were summarized in Four Fragile Freedoms, a Baptist primer by Dr. Walter Shurden. [142]

1. Bible Freedom is an open Bible under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The Bible transforms our lives, supersedes any form of creed, and frees the individual to interpret scripture as the Holy Spirit leads.

2. Soul Freedom means that a person’s faith is personal, experiential, and voluntary. A person is responsible for making up his or her own mind about God and spiritual matters.

3. Church Freedom is the belief that local churches are free under the Lordship of Christ to determine their membership and leadership, to order their worship and work, and to ordain whom they perceive as gifted for ministry. No one — no pastor, no civil magistrate, no convention of churches — can dictate to the local church.

4. Religious Freedom is defined as “a free church in a free state ” — the separation of church and state.

All Baptists would subscribe to these four freedoms, but differences in how these freedoms are understood contributed to the conflict that led to the SBC Takeover. As a former SBC Convention president once quipped: “We use the same vocabulary, but have different dictionaries.”

Address to the Public,[143] the founding document of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, outlines how CBF’s understandings have remained consistent with the best of Southern Baptist heritage but are different from those who now control the Southern Baptist Convention.

Occasionally, someone accuses Baptists of being merely a contentious, controversial people. That may be. But the ideas that divide Baptists in the present “controversy” are the same ideas that have divided Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Episcopalians. These ideas are strong and central; these ideas will not be papered over. Here are some of these basic ideas.

1. Bible. Many of our differences come from a different understanding and interpretation of Holy Scripture. But the difference is not at the point of the inspiration or authority of the Bible. We interpret the Bible differently, as will be seen below in our treatment of the biblical understanding of women and pastors. We also, however, have a different understanding of the nature of the Bible. We want to be biblical — especially in our view of the Bible. That means that we dare not claim less for the Bible than the Bible claims for itself. The Bible neither claims nor reveals inerrancy as a Christian teaching. Bible claims must be based on the Bible, not on human interpretations of the Bible.

2. Education. What should happen in colleges and seminaries is a major bone of contention between Fundamentalists and moderates. Fundamentalists educate by indoctrination. They have the truth and all the truth. As they see it, their job is to pass along the truth they have. They must not change it. They are certain that their understandings of the truth are correct, complete, and to be adopted by others.

Moderates, too, are concerned with truth, but we do not claim a monopoly. We seek to enlarge and build upon such truth as we have. The task of education is to take the past and review it, even criticize it. We work to give our children a larger understanding of spiritual and physical reality. We know we will always live in faith; our understandings will not be complete until we get to heaven and are loosed from the limitations of our mortality and sin.

3. Mission . What ought to be the task of the missionary is another difference between us. We think the mission task is to reach people for faith in Jesus Christ by preaching, teaching, healing and other ministries of mercy and justice. We believe this to be the model of Jesus in Galilee . That is the way he went about his mission task. Fundamentalists make the mission assignment narrower than Jesus did. They allow their emphasis on direct evangelism to undercut other biblical ministries of mercy and justice. This narrowed definition of what a missionary ought to be and do is a contention between us.

4. Pastor. What is the task of the pastor? They argue the pastor should be the ruler of a congregation. This smacks of the bishops’ task in the Middle Ages. It also sounds much like the kind of church leadership Baptists revolted against in the seventeenth century.

Our understanding of the role of the pastor is to be a servant/shepherd. Respecting lay leadership is our assignment. Allowing the congregation to make real decisions is of the very nature of Baptist congregationalism. And using corporate business models to “get results” is building the Church by the rules of a secular world rather than witnessing to the secular world by way of a servant Church .

5. Women. The New Testament gives two signals about the role of women. A literal interpretation of Paul can build a case for making women submissive to men in the Church. But another body of scripture points toward another place for women. In Galatians 3:27-28 Paul wrote, “As many of you as are baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (NRSV)

We take Galatians as a clue to the way the Church should be ordered. We interpret the reference to women the same way we interpret the reference to slaves. If we have submissive roles for women, we must also have a place for the slaves in the Church.

In Galatians Paul follows the spirit of Jesus who courageously challenged the conventional wisdom of his day. It was a wisdom with rigid boundaries between men and women in religion and in public life. Jesus deliberately broke those barriers. He called women to follow him; he treated women as equally capable of dealing with sacred issues. Our model for the role of women in matters of faith is the Lord Jesus.

6. Church. An ecumenical and inclusive attitude is basic to our fellowship. The great ideas of theology are the common property of all the church. Baptists are only a part of that great and inclusive Church. So, we are eager to have fellowship with our brothers and sisters in the faith and to recognize their work for our Savior. We do not try to make them conform to us; we try to include them in our design for mission. Mending the torn fabric of both Baptist and Christian fellowship is important to us. God willing, we will bind together the broken parts into a new company in preview of the great fellowship we shall have with each other in heaven . . . .

Something is wrong with a religious body that spends such energy in overt political activity. Time is unwisely invested in beating people or trying to beat people . . . . There is division. The existence of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is a simple confession of that division; it is not the cause of that division.

142. Walter B. Shurden, The Baptist Identity: Four Fragile Freedoms (Macon: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc., 1993).

143. Address to the Public: The Founding Document of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (Atlanta: Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, May 9, 1991).





Chapter 23 Four Baptist Freedoms Those of us blessed to live in the United States understand that our country was founded by radicals. These men and women championed the values of freedom and self-determination. In a similar way, Baptists have been defined by their radical commitment to freedom. Since the early 1600s, four basic freedoms have traditionally and historically defined the Baptist faith. These freedoms were summarized in Four Fragile Freedoms, a Baptist primer by Dr. Walter Shurden. [142] 1. *Bible Freedom* is an open Bible under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The Bible transforms our lives, supersedes any form of creed, and frees the individual to interpret scripture as the Holy Spirit leads. 2. *Soul Freedom* means that a person’s faith is personal, experiential, and voluntary. A person is responsible for making up his or her own mind about God and spiritual matters. 3. *Church Freedom* is the belief that local churches are free under the Lordship of Christ to determine their membership and leadership, to order their worship and work, and to ordain whom they perceive as gifted for ministry. No one — no pastor, no civil magistrate, no convention of churches — can dictate to the local church. 4. *Religious Freedom* is defined as “a free church in a free state ” — the separation of church and state. All Baptists would subscribe to these four freedoms, but differences in how these freedoms are understood contributed to the conflict that led to the SBC Takeover. As a former SBC Convention president once quipped: “We use the same vocabulary, but have different dictionaries.” Address to the Public,[143] the founding document of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, outlines how CBF’s understandings have remained consistent with the best of Southern Baptist heritage but are different from those who now control the Southern Baptist Convention. Occasionally, someone accuses Baptists of being merely a contentious, controversial people. That may be. But the ideas that divide Baptists in the present “controversy” are the same ideas that have divided Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Episcopalians. These ideas are strong and central; these ideas will not be papered over. Here are some of these basic ideas. 1. Bible. Many of our differences come from a different understanding and interpretation of Holy Scripture. But the difference is not at the point of the inspiration or authority of the Bible. We interpret the Bible differently, as will be seen below in our treatment of the biblical understanding of women and pastors. We also, however, have a different understanding of the nature of the Bible. We want to be biblical — especially in our view of the Bible. That means that we dare not claim less for the Bible than the Bible claims for itself. The Bible neither claims nor reveals inerrancy as a Christian teaching. Bible claims must be based on the Bible, not on human interpretations of the Bible. 2. Education. What should happen in colleges and seminaries is a major bone of contention between Fundamentalists and moderates. Fundamentalists educate by indoctrination. They have the truth and all the truth. As they see it, their job is to pass along the truth they have. They must not change it. They are certain that their understandings of the truth are correct, complete, and to be adopted by others. Moderates, too, are concerned with truth, but we do not claim a monopoly. We seek to enlarge and build upon such truth as we have. The task of education is to take the past and review it, even criticize it. We work to give our children a larger understanding of spiritual and physical reality. We know we will always live in faith; our understandings will not be complete until we get to heaven and are loosed from the limitations of our mortality and sin. 3. Mission . What ought to be the task of the missionary is another difference between us. We think the mission task is to reach people for faith in Jesus Christ by preaching, teaching, healing and other ministries of mercy and justice. We believe this to be the model of Jesus in Galilee . That is the way he went about his mission task. Fundamentalists make the mission assignment narrower than Jesus did. They allow their emphasis on direct evangelism to undercut other biblical ministries of mercy and justice. This narrowed definition of what a missionary ought to be and do is a contention between us. 4. Pastor. What is the task of the pastor? They argue the pastor should be the ruler of a congregation. This smacks of the bishops’ task in the Middle Ages. It also sounds much like the kind of church leadership Baptists revolted against in the seventeenth century. Our understanding of the role of the pastor is to be a servant/shepherd. Respecting lay leadership is our assignment. Allowing the congregation to make real decisions is of the very nature of Baptist congregationalism. And using corporate business models to “get results” is building the Church by the rules of a secular world rather than witnessing to the secular world by way of a servant Church . 5. Women. The New Testament gives two signals about the role of women. A literal interpretation of Paul can build a case for making women submissive to men in the Church. But another body of scripture points toward another place for women. In Galatians 3:27-28 Paul wrote, “As many of you as are baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (NRSV) We take Galatians as a clue to the way the Church should be ordered. We interpret the reference to women the same way we interpret the reference to slaves. If we have submissive roles for women, we must also have a place for the slaves in the Church. In Galatians Paul follows the spirit of Jesus who courageously challenged the conventional wisdom of his day. It was a wisdom with rigid boundaries between men and women in religion and in public life. Jesus deliberately broke those barriers. He called women to follow him; he treated women as equally capable of dealing with sacred issues. Our model for the role of women in matters of faith is the Lord Jesus. 6. Church. An ecumenical and inclusive attitude is basic to our fellowship. The great ideas of theology are the common property of all the church. Baptists are only a part of that great and inclusive Church. So, we are eager to have fellowship with our brothers and sisters in the faith and to recognize their work for our Savior. We do not try to make them conform to us; we try to include them in our design for mission. Mending the torn fabric of both Baptist and Christian fellowship is important to us. God willing, we will bind together the broken parts into a new company in preview of the great fellowship we shall have with each other in heaven . . . . Something is wrong with a religious body that spends such energy in overt political activity. Time is unwisely invested in beating people or trying to beat people . . . . There is division. The existence of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is a simple confession of that division; it is not the cause of that division. Previous Chapter \| Next Chapter 142. Walter B. Shurden, The Baptist Identity: Four Fragile Freedoms (Macon: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc., 1993). 143. Address to the Public: The Founding Document of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (Atlanta: Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, May 9, 1991).
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